Which Arabic-speaking media outlet is the most empathetic to the Holocaust? What are the differences between kosher and halal food? And what stigmas do Arabs carry regarding Jews from the Middle East?
Rabbi Elhanan Miller, a 43-year-old Jerusalem [Al-Quds in Arabic] native, content creator, media commentator, and social media personality, can answer all of the above – and in fluent Arabic.
In a world often divided by political tensions and cultural misunderstandings, Miller has charted an unconventional path. A former Arab and Palestinian affairs correspondent, who began speaking Arabic at the age of 13, he made a dramatic career shift nine years ago when he returned to his studies to pursue rabbinic ordination at Beit Midrash Harel in Jerusalem.
“I switched from media to education,” Miller explained, describing his transition after being ordained as a rabbi in 2019, “but ironically found myself back in the media – this time as a content creator and commentator.”
Following a year in Australia that coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, he returned to Jerusalem and entered the field of education, teaching at the Pardes Institute and the Hartman Institute.
But the world had a different plan for Miller, whose seeds for the current work in the Arabic-speaking sphere were planted during his rabbinic studies. He was invited to lecture to Palestinians and Israelis as part of an initiative by the NGO Shorashim (Roots) in Gush Etzion, where he taught introductions to Judaism for Palestinians and introductions to Islam for Jewish Israelis.
“Teaching about Islam was easier because I had studied it,” Miller noted. “But how does one create an introduction to Judaism?” He discovered that his Palestinian audiences weren’t particularly interested in theoretical religious lessons – they wanted to know practical information like what his kippah represents, the differences between halal and kosher dietary laws, and what Miller described as the “choreography of Jewish prayer.”
THIS REALIZATION sparked an epiphany. “I thought: ‘There’s a tremendous untapped potential here. If these are the questions Palestinians who interact daily with Israelis are asking, then there’s probably an Arab world of half a billion Arabic speakers who have the same questions without anyone to ask. And perhaps even two billion Muslims globally,’” Miller reflected.
He identified a pivotal historical moment: “The Arab world has emptied itself of its Jews, yet simultaneously there’s enormous curiosity about Jews, for both theological and political reasons.”
This insight led to the creation of his project People of the Book (Am HaSefer in Hebrew and Ahl Al-Kitab in Arabic) in the summer of 2017, beginning with a series of animated videos explaining Jewish practices and rituals. The first video comparing kosher and halal dietary laws became the most widely content in the project, garnering four million views.
“I realized there was a hunger for this kind of content,” Miller said. “People wanted straightforward explanations about Jewish practices without political undertones.”
The content creator continued creating animated videos about Jewish worship, commandments, and holidays. He then decided to expand his approach in two ways: first, by incorporating Arabic speakers whenever possible – inviting Thanaa Jawabreh, a devout Muslim woman and activist, to participate in a series called “Close Neighbors”; and second, by conducting interviews with Jews having roots from across the Middle East and North Africa.
“I’m creating a sort of ethnography of Jews who originated in diasporas from all over the Middle East, telling their stories so that they aren’t forgotten,” Miller explained. This approach has allowed him to document personal histories that might otherwise be lost to time, creating a valuable archive of lived experiences.
The decision to include Muslim partners came from Miller’s belief that dialogue must be two-way. “It couldn’t just be me explaining Judaism,” he said. “There needed to be authentic Muslim voices explaining their traditions as well. That’s how real understanding develops.”
Challenging stereotypes outwards and inwards
Miller’s projects work in two significant directions simultaneously. First, they challenge a central, often oversimplified stereotype in the Arab world about Jews – that they lived an idyllic reality until the establishment of the State of Israel or until “Ashkenazi Zionists brainwashed them” as Miller found it phrased many times in his career, despite the fact that many Jewish communities faced persecution long before 1948.
“I’ve interviewed about 100 Jews, and they break this myth,” Miller explained. “There’s nostalgia and longing, but simultaneously there are many stories of harassment, antisemitism, even physical attacks in places such as Libya, Syria, and Iraq even before the establishment of the state. One interviewee told me that as an infant in Tripoli, she had witnessed her mother being murdered in front of her eyes; and I’ve heard many terrible stories about the Farhud [1941 Baghdad pogrom] in Iraq. It all breaks this idyllic stigma.”
Secondly, the ethnographer sees the project as carrying an important message within Israel itself. All interviews with these Jews are conducted in their own local dialects of their respective communities – spoken Jewish-Arabic dialects specific to each locale. These are languages on the verge of extinction that haven’t passed to the second generation, let alone the third.
“These testimonies restore dignity to Arabic as a Jewish language, to Middle Eastern Jews who spoke Arabic and used to hide their Jewish and Arab identity,” the rabbi explained. “It shows Israeli Jews from the more conservative side that Arabic has served as a Jewish language for centuries – showing positive examples of interaction and evoking very strong nostalgia among Arabs watching from their respective countries.”
Miller said that the internal effect has been particularly powerful for Mizrahi Jews – those mostly originating from North Africa and Central and West Asia – many of whom suppressed their connection to Arabic culture as they integrated into a society that was largely shaped by Ashkenazi Jewish traditions in the midst of a conflict with Arab countries. In this context, his work reminds Israeli society that Arabic is not just the language of their neighbors or adversaries but part of the Jewish heritage as well.
For Miller, this historical-linguistic auxiliary project is akin to that of documenting the stories of survivors of the Holocaust, “with all the respective differences, of course. This generation is also going to disappear one day, and in the future people won’t know what the experience was like to be in a synagogue in Beirut, Baghdad, or Damascus,” he lamented.
WHEN ASKED about reactions to his activity, Miller drew distinction between the early days and the newer parts of the project. “At the beginning, in 2017, the responses were more hostile and harsh because there was a natural suspicion about who I was and what agenda I represented,” he said. “There’s a regular suspicion against Arabic-speaking Jews that they might be Mossad agents.”
Over time, as Miller recognized that viewers began to appreciate his authenticity, their responses became more positive. The social activist emphasized that he has never received any funding from the Israeli government for his project. Three years ago, People of the Book, funded entirely by private donations from Jews abroad, finally became a nonprofit organization. “It’s funded with Jewish money, not Arab money. The consumers are not the funders,” he clarified.
One of Miller’s most impactful interviews was with one of the last Yemeni immigrants to Israel, Salman, who had made the mistake of being photographed with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holding a Torah scroll he had brought from Yemen. Unfortunately, the Houthis used that photograph as a rationale to arrest the last young Jew in Yemen, Levi Marhabi, who remains in Houthi prison.
“He’s essentially their hostage. A court ruled that he should be released, but he’s still kidnapped or imprisoned in Yemen,” Miller said. At the end of his interview with Salman, he asked him to make a personal appeal to the Houthi leader. In his Yemeni accent, Salman said, “The Yemeni people are merciful and forgiving – release him.” The interview went viral on Yemeni social networks.
Another touching story involved 93-year-old Iraqi Ilana Basri, who once had a program called The Doctor behind the Microphone on Kol Israel radio, where she gave medical advice to Arabs and brought patients from across the Arab world for treatment in Israel. In her interview, she spoke nostalgically about her hometown and asked permission from current Iraqi Prime Minister Sudani to return before she passes away.
“She literally cried in the video. It received many responses, the majority of them from Iraqis,” Miller said. “On YouTube, viewers often come from the same countries the Jews came from. There were non-stop comments telling the Iraqi prime minister to receive her. That’s the kind of nostalgia I want to evoke.”
The outbreak of war following Oct. 7, 2023, changed the dynamic. “The war shuffled the cards. On one hand, we got many more views; but on the other hand, there was more incitement and racism.” For the first time, Miller decided to close comments on Facebook for several months. He gradually reopened them, and the responses returned to their original mix of positive and negative.
“You need thick skin to engage in this type of work,” he admitted. “You can’t be too sensitive to the responses because you’ll quickly stop. I see this with my interviewees – they take the comments to heart, and I need to reassure them and tell them to focus on the goal and move forward.”
Back to the media front
Another turning point triggered by the Oct. 7 massacre and the war that ensued was Miller’s reintroduction to the media arena, this time as a commentator. “Already on Oct. 7, my phone began ringing alongside the sirens that sounded in Jerusalem,” he recalled. As an observant Jew, he didn’t answer on Shabbat, but he recognized calls coming from television studios where he had previously been interviewed in Arabic: BBC, Sky News Arabia, France 24, and Deutsche Welle Arabic.
“I was involuntarily dragged back into the world of media I had left seven to eight years earlier,” Miller said. Since then, the calls haven’t stopped. “I’ve lost count of interviews, but I’ve given over 800 – initially six per day, now four to five a week.”
Miller explained that there’s a very limited pool of Jews who can conduct interviews in Arabic – “perhaps 20 if I’m being generous,” he commented. In the media personality’s view, attempting to convince the other side of the Israeli narrative is a futile endeavor, especially during wartime when the gap between narratives is so vast and the difference between what viewers in Israel and the Arab world see is so significant.
“Trying to convince people of the Israeli narrative is an impossible mission, and that’s not my task,” he stated. “My task is to show the human side of Israelis. I know they [Arabs] see me as an enemy, but it’s important for me to humanize myself, my country, and my society.”
For Miller, this can be accomplished in two ways. First, alongside his commentary, he expresses empathy when possible. “They usually bring me on air before or after horrific images from Gaza. My framing is always within this context, so I find it appropriate to show humanity and express sorrow for innocent people who lose their lives.”
Second, though he avoids bringing up political issues – “except for the issue of the hostages, which is not political in and of itself” – Miller is not afraid to criticize specific government actions when asked about them. “Some in Israel would say that’s ‘airing our dirty laundry in public.’ But I don’t think it’s right to hide my thoughts; I think it’s a more sophisticated form of advocacy.”
Miller continued, “When I go on air and criticize a Netanyahu government action or policy, I demonstrate something that no Arab viewers can ever do: openly criticize their government while sitting in their homes.” For Miller this is a “show, don’t tell” modus operandi. “You can go on TV and talk about how Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East or you can simply show that you’re sitting in a studio in Jerusalem criticizing your own government without fear of repercussions.”
Miller believes that this approach gives him more credibility as a commentator, neutralizing hostility from some broadcasters and confusing people’s expectations. “It creates cognitive dissonance – they receive something they didn’t necessarily expect, and they continue to invite me, so it must work somehow.”
Distinct media outlets
Miller has observed significant differences between the various Arabic-language media outlets. Most are European channels with Arabic versions, but they differ in tone. “The best in terms of approach is Deutsche Welle because they have strict laws against Holocaust denial,” he explained.
He described an incident where DW put him opposite a heated spokesperson from Qatar at the height of the current war. When the interviewee began saying that Israelis were Nazis, the interviewer – a Moroccan Arab – cut him off and said, “You cannot say such things about the Holocaust; nothing was worse than the Holocaust.”
When asked whether he refrains from speaking in specific outlets, Miller said that he has made conscious decisions to stop appearing on RT Arabic, which he described as “completely Putinist propaganda,” adding that the number of viewers there didn’t justify continued participation.
Regarding Qatari Al Jazeera, he faced a more complex dilemma. “During the war, it clearly became a propaganda arm of Hamas in a pronounced way,” Miller stated. “In the past, I thought it aspired to some objectivity, even if there was a clear bias. I used to participate in a program called Mirror to the Press, commenting on Israeli newspaper headlines, but this is not the case anymore.”
Miller recounted how one of Al Jazeera’s senior correspondents called to say that he wanted to interview him for an edited piece about how Israel reports on the war. “I said to him, ‘Four months have passed, everyone’s been calling non-stop, and you haven’t called me for a live interview once. Seeing your type of coverage, I’m already suspicious about what such an edited piece would look like. I don’t want to participate in a piece that undergoes editing. Tell your editors in Doha that if they want to invite me for a live segment, I’ll consider it. I have a rule of thumb that all my interviews must be live. I never do interviews that can be then edited and taken out of context.’”
Immersed in Arabic since age 13
Miller’s journey with Arabic began at age 13 at a religious high school in Jerusalem. He later served as a translator in the IDF’s intelligence corps and continued developing his language skills as a volunteer with Magen David Adom in Jerusalem, striving to speak to Palestinian patients in their own language.
Reflecting on the paradox of his situation, Miller noted that when people in the Arab world recoil from his Israeli identity, he contemplated the fact that he couldn’t have reached his level of Arabic knowledge had he not been Israeli. “It would have been much harder to acquire this level of Arabic, and hence my appreciation for Arab culture, had I not grown up in Israel.”
The Arabic-speaking advocate continued: “This is why BDS is just so wrong. Those who think that boycotting each other will help, I think the opposite. Developing deep familiarity and learning each other’s language are the real keys to peace between us. It doesn’t solve political disputes, but it makes an enormous difference in terms of humanization.”
Miller’s project was born from a sense that Israel’s classical diplomatic efforts had reached a dead end. “I felt it was time to think outside the box. I believe that even more religious people must make videos with Jewish cultural content in Arabic,” he suggested.
“Religious people have a more important role to play in peacemaking,” Miller asserted, speaking as both a religious person and a rabbi. “I truly believe in being among the disciples of Aaron, who loved peace and pursued peace, loved people and brought them closer to Torah. There’s great importance for religious people to bring peace.”
During dialogues with Palestinians at university, Miller described how he was often the only religious person and the only Arabic speaker in the room. “I was a strange bird from both perspectives. These two things together, and each one separately, gave me a tremendous advantage over my other friends; they raised my level of understanding with Palestinians to higher levels.”
Miller’s message is clear: Knowledge of language is a tool for peace, and religious discourse should occupy a more prominent place in the toolbox of decision-makers and statesmen in peacemaking efforts.
“The project’s goal, broadly speaking, is the humanization of each other so we aren’t at each other’s throats,” Miller concluded. “Talking about real peace is distant and not realistic right now, but first ‘turn from evil’ and then ‘do good.’ See each other as human beings, and then move to the next stage.”
Through his work, Rabbi Elhanan Miller continues to demonstrate how cultural understanding, linguistic skills, and religious dialogue can build bridges in one of the world’s most complex regions, offering a different approach to connection in a landscape often dominated by division.
Rabbi Elhanan Miller’s videos can be viewed at: www.youtube.com/@people.of.thebook www.facebook.com/peoplethebook